Side Event

Strengthening What Works— Recognising and supporting the conservation achievements of indigenous peoples and local communities

Organizer
IUCN CEESP + ICCA CONSORTIUM + UNEP/WCMC + GEF/SGP et al.

Date and Time
21 October 2010 13:15 - 14:45

Meeting
Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10)

Territories and sites conserved by indigenous peoples and local communities (ICCAs) are a phenomenon of global significance for the earth's biodiversity, livelihood security, cultural diversity, and meeting a host of other human development objectives. Properly accounted for, recognized and supported, ICCAs could possibly secure as much land and natural resources as those, today, under governments’ “conservation status” around the world. Since the World Parks Congress at Durban, in 2003, the IUCN has stressed the need to better understand, recognize and support ICCAs. The CBD Programme of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA) encourages Parties to do the same. This event will review and compare experiences, lessons learned and practical “DOs and DON’Ts” from around the world. It will review how CBD Parties, indigenous peoples, local communities, civil society organizations and others can promote appropriate legislation and policy, list ICCAs in the dedicated UNEP/WCMC Registry and support new and on-going initiative with the help of GEF SGP. This side event will focus on terrestrial ICCAs and another one on Friday 22 October will be dedicated to marine and coastal environments.